Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-184) and index.

Everglades forever -- Cities in the wilderness -- What's the matter with Iowa? -- At water's edge -- Land of the free. "The restoration of the Florida Everglades. The return of the wolf to Yellowstone and the condor to the wild. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Dismantling obsolete dams. Each was a landmark of environmental progress in the 1990s and each was realized under the guidance of then Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt. Now he draws on these experiences to develop a surprising message - such episodic conservation victories, however important, will not be sufficient either to protect our disappearing open spaces or to contain the blight of urban sprawl." "In Cities in the Wilderness, Babbitt makes the case for a new national land use policy. Throughout our history, from George Washington's day to the present, federal policies have encouraged and subsidized destructive resource exploitation and out-of-control development that threaten the American landscape." "From Babbitt's incisive analysis comes a vision and a program for how it should be done: a federal leadership role in land use planning, a new way of thinking about open space that retains local control while acknowledging national interests."--Jacket.